The Japanese word for green is "midori" (yes, of liqueur fame), and the word
for blue is "ao", however, as I understand it (though I am no lexicographic
historian), midori is a much younger word than ao. For reasons few seem able
to articulate, Japanese historically had a somewhat limited verbal palette
for the infinite variety of colors, though it is augmented by such natural
constructions as "ha-iro" for "ash-color" (gray) or "mizu-iro" for the blue
color of water.

Traffic signals are the same color as in the U.S. (a blue-green), but are
universally referred to here as "ao-shingo" (blue light) (nothing to do with
K-mart).

It's not just that they choose to label one ambiguous color as being on the
other side of the line; "ao" simply has a broader meaning. Green tree frogs
are "ao-gaeru", and one's youth may be referred to as "seishun" (blue spring).

I could go on about the colors of tea and others, but that's enough for now.

I don't know about French usage, but in the Netherlands, "cordon bleu"
primarily means a breaded veal schnitzel, split and filled with slices of
ham and cheese, then cooked. It is an old stand-by and appears on restaurant
menus as a matter of course: not in the least adventurous, but safe, and you
know what you're getting.

Yes, it seems to be common in most of the Western world.
I have received email about it from readers in other places.
-Anu Garg

In contemporary French, "cordon bleu" means a very fine non-professional
cook (more often female) who cooks in their own kitchen as opposed to a chef
who is a professional.

My mother is a "fin cordon bleu" or "vrai cordon bleu" but two of my uncles
were real "chefs". It is also more often used for women, even though you'll
see it applied to men too, but maybe this only reflects the fact that in
everyday life there are still a lot more women to do the more complicated
time-consuming cooking that qualifies them as "cordons bleus".

The term "redbrick" may date from a post-WWII era, but it's inaccurate to
say those British universities were "built...after WWII." I myself attended
one of them, Manchester University, which most definitely began its life in
the 19th century, as did many other redbricks.

"Lacking prestige" is one meaning of redbrick, in the a relative sense (e.g.
a redbrick lacks the prestige of Oxbridge). It does not, however, refer to
the post WW2 universities - quite the opposite, as the original redbricks
were the imposing civic universities established by the Victorians in the
great industrial and commercial cities of England in the 19th Century:
Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol, and Leeds. They were
established largely as technical universities aimed at driving the industrial
revolution by producing engineers and other professionals, and thus
contrasted with the classical "knowledge for its own sake" position of the
Oxbridge institutions. In contrast with the "concrete and glass" universities
that followed 100 years later, however, in the first attempt to open up
university education to wider participation, the term redbrick itself becomes
a term of elitism, as the redbricks constitute the core of the UK's 'elite'
Russell Group of research intensive universities.

Charles Neame
Cranfield University (concrete, glass and some reddish-brown bricks)

From: Brian Edmondson (b.edmondson ntlworld.com)
Subject: Redbrick

The term Redbrick was originally coined about the University of Liverpool
Victoria Building, currently undergoing refurbishment and designed by Alfred
Waterhouse who also designed the "Prudential" buildings around cities in the
UK.

From: John Tittmann (jtittmann alriti.com)
Subject: Redbrick

Another origin theory for Ivy League, perhaps apocryphal but amusing
nonetheless, is that the Ivy League was named not for the green ivy growing
on walls and but rather for the supposed collective name of the original four
universities--IV League.

That's a great story but it's not true as there
never were four colleges in the collective.
-Anu Garg

In Australia--especially in the state of Queensland of the 1980s--the term
"white-shoe" was invariably "white-shoe brigade", a pejorative description of
less than lovely land and property developers, hand-in-glove with local and
state governments of the day.

In around the first half of the 20th Century, at least in some Ivy-League
schools, but perhaps more widely, "white-shoe", with its connotation of
WASPy wealth, evolved to simply "shoe", with the "white" implied.

From: Peter Matson (peter sll.com)
Subject: Re: feedback: white-shoe

There was a time, from the late 40s to early 60s (when "the 60s" took over)
that anyone in the Ivy League who aspired to be in what would later be called
the in-crowd, had to be seen wearing scuffed (always scuffed, even if just
bought, brand new) white bucks. There was no alternative. Thus white-shoe;
indeed to be known as someone "not white-shoe" was to be condemned to
otherness, probable financial ruin and certain social ineptitude.

Peter Matson, (Harvard, '56 - if I had bought my pair of white bucks and
stayed in school)

At mid century when I went from a small Midwest town to Smith College, I had
to learn a new vocabulary. One of the words was "shoe" which was short for
"white shoe". He is "so shoe" was a compliment and told you everything you
needed to know. It meant that the college boy in question was upper class and
knew all the ways of the upper class. Certainly he was not first generation
at college or new wealth.

From: Jennifer Pols (jennifer.pols gmail.com)
Subject: White shoe

In South Africa we referred to men working at traditional Afrikaans banks,
in the 60s and 70s, as grey shoes. Its a derogatory term for little people
wielding power in middle management and feeling very important. Needless to
say their shoe colour of preference seemed to be grey. Dentists and medical
reps would have worn white shoes. Odd how we differ. Of course nowadays
younger people wouldn't know what I was talking about.

"[John] Street's problem was that, unlike the white-shoe lawyers and
sleek inside players who'd mastered this game, his people were new to
the trough."
Chris Satullo; Not a Crook, But Still a Failure; Philadelphia Inquirer
(Pennsylvania); Jan 5, 2008.

It would be wiser anyway not to wear white shoes in the vicinity of a trough.

Blue Streak will only ever mean one thing to your British Readers:
a colossal waste of money. It was the name given to a missile which was
eventually cancelled around 1960 because it didn't work. This was, of
course, after vast sums of money had been wasted on its development.

It is ironic to see that others think it means "something moving very fast".
The missile moved nowhere fast.

Anyone interested in color as metaphor might want to read If It's Purple,
Someone's Gonna Die by Patti Bellatoni. From Amazon.com: ... a highly
entertaining exploration of the world of color and its impact on our
emotions. Told through a careful analysis of motion pictures that have used
color to enhance or define their characters or dramatic needs, we are given
a lively and insightful view of our reactions to the film experience.

Leading us gently but firmly through places we may have taken for granted,
we find revelations that can be of real help to readers who use color to
shape emotional responses to concepts, as well as physical environments.
We can never again take the world of color for granted." --Robert Boyle,
four-time Oscar-nominated Production Designer (North by Northwest, The
Birds, The Thomas Crown Affair, Fiddler on the Roof)...

The quotation about language being like a cowpath reminded me of what
H. Beam Piper had one of his characters say, "English is the product
of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and
as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that
conversation." (Victor Grego in Fuzzy Sapiens)

High is our calling, Friend!--Creative Art / (Whether the instrument of
words she use, Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,) / Demands the service
of a mind and heart. -William Wordsworth, poet (1770-1850)